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Category: Election

A lot gas been said this week on the topic of the SNP and the impending repeal if the hunting ban in England and Wales and it seems that people in some quarters seem to be latching onto it as a stick to bash them with. It’s worrying for many reasons, not least the fact that I feel the same people will bash them with it whichever way they decide to go.

As a party vehemently opposed to hunting and killing foxes with dogs, the SNP will come under fire if they abstain. It will be pounced upon by all to bash them for “deserting” their beliefs on fox hunting.

However, they are a party fighting a devolution agenda. They want the rest of the UK to stay out of decisions which affect Scotland and also feel they should stay out of decisions that don’t affect them. In fact, they previously said they would abstain on issues that don’t involve them. If they were to show up and vote against repealing the ban they would be hammered for going back on that and for sticking their noses in to business that doesn’t concern them. (Scotland banned foxhunting before the rest of the UK and repealing this ban wouldn’t affect the ban in Scotland.)

Their opponents from all across the political spectrum have shown they are going to attack them whatever happens and I believe this is wrong. The SNP have a hard moral decision to make, whatever they do right will attack them on it, because they are trying desperately to hide the fact that Scotland voted massively in favour of an anti austerity party. They also want to keep the “Scottish wolves at the door” myth alive as it has served them well and will no doubt continue to do so.
The real problem is that I think many on the left will attack them too, because they somehow blame them for the disaster we saw on election day. It’s not the SNPs fault the tactical vote to “keep the tories out” deserted the Lib Dems after they joined said tories, it’s not the SNPs fault that Labour failed to stand strongly enough against austerity to satchel the mood of the Scottish people, and a divided left taking pot shots at each other over things like this plays right into Cameron’s hands as it causes negative press for all left parties and takes the focus away from where it should be. Which is opposing the cuts to our essential services, opposing the attack on our human rights, workers rights, civil liberties and all the rest they have planned.

Last week saw an unprecedented wipe out of one of the main 3 political parties in the UK, the Liberal Democrats. Anyone who has been on twitter or Facebook over the week since will have seen the popular hashtag #LibDemFightback and your bound to have noticed the posts pertaining to the amount of new members they’ve gained since the election. A decent amount, around 11000 last I saw, but still less than half the new members Labour have gained and still a fraction of the overall members Labour have and less too than the Greens. So what next for the Lib Dems? Will they come swinging back at the next election, or will they continue to be a minor party with a single figure number of MPs?

What went wrong?

A lot has been said about this, but I think to fully understand it you need to look at what had previously gone right.

The Liberal Democrats are quite a new party, formed from the remnants of the once great liberal party. (A party that were one of two main parties with the Conservative party. Parties that were not overly different, which showed when Churchill and others regularly crossed the floor. They suffered a massive wipe out in the twenties after entering a coalition with the labour party who were on the rise trying to make things better for the working man.) And the SDP, a breakaway ftom the labour party who thought it was too left under Michael Foot. The Lib Dems built themselves up to over 60 seats in 2005, and this success was twofold.

Firstly, they had built a following of liberal Conservatives in the south and mobilised the labour tactical vote well in many areas to keep the tories out.

Secondly, in traditional Labour heartlands they appealed to disillusioned Labour voters who felt Blair had taken the party too far to the right, picked up a number of protest voters from Labour with their repeated rhetoric on the ‘illegal war in Iraq’, won the student vote with talk of tuition fees and mobilised the tactical tory vote to “keep Labour out”.

What does this have to do with their downfall

In 2010 the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservatives. One of the first things they did in that government break a pledge they’d made on raising tuition fees. These two things meant that instantly they’d lost the student vote for 2015 and the traditional Labour vote who’d voted tactically, as a protest or because they felt Labour were too far to the right were likely to go too.

2015

When the election came strange things happened. I like in Leeds NW, predicted to be a Lib Dem / Labour marginal, even a three way marginal. Although the sitting LD MP had a 10000+ majority in 2010. The tories didn’t name their candidate until nominations were due to be handed in. They didn’t campaign and an analysis of the general election results against the local election results show masses of tory voters voted LD. A similar story was seen in Sheffield Hallam and other Lib Dem / Labour marginals.

I’m sure the Tories are quire happy with the way the deal panned out, but I’d wager the Lib Dems didn’t felt the same when the Conservative machine steamrollered them in the South as the Labour tactical vote deserted them.

So can they recover?

I think it will be tough for them to recover in the traditional Labour areas. A lot will depend on the new Labour leader and the direction that party takes, but it is currently difficult to imagine a recovery there, or in Scotland.

In the south, however, they maybe able to make some ground. There’s no doubt that they reined Cameron back during the coalition, and I think when the tactical voters see the true face of Cameronist Conservatism they may find it in them to vote LD again to keep the Tories out. I think the LDs should have focused more on this in the campaign, their southern wipe out may not have happened. I feel it wasn’t shouted as much as it should have been due to the need to appeal to Tory voters in seats like Leeds NW and Sheffield Hallam.

A lot will rest on their own new leader. They need to distance themselves from the worst of coalition, and celebrate the successes they had in stopping Cameron. I’d assume that Tim Fallon is the candidate to do this. I think that their rebuilding process will be long, and that it won’t happen in the Labour heartland, so they should focus their efforts on regaining the Labour tactical vote and “Keeping the tories out”.

Today I was asked: “Now the election is over, don’t you think it’s time to let politics go and move on?”

This is an idea that worries me. We live in a democracy. The country has elected a government to represent the views of the people. That doesn’t mean that we say “there you go old chap, do what you will with the place we will vote again in 2020.” Politics is an ongoing thing. We have the democratic right to lobby our mps on issues in parliament, we have the democratic right to peacefully protest and we still currently have the right of free speech (although with the snoopers charter this is looking more threatened) and I certainly intended to use those rights. There’s also far too much voter apathy, and perhaps conversations can help with that.

Elections are not just every five years, there is local elections, I’ve a feeling another referendum on electoral reform is brewing, there is likely to be a referendum on EU membership by 2017, there is the upcoming police and crime commissioner elections. Then there’s two of the main parties running leadership elections. These are issues that can directly affect all our futures.

On top of that, I realise that in an ideal world everyone would read all the manifestos and choose the one they agree with. In practice the media whip up a storm over a few issues and a lot of people decided based on a single, or a few issues. Further still, even those people who have read the entire manifesto may have chosen the best fit to their view, but may still vehemently disagree with some of the policies in there, or policies that are not in there and come after. This is why the democratic process exists, why you have a named MP who you can write to an explain your views and urge them to express them in parliamentary debates and urge them to vote for or against certain pieces of legislature. The petition is another part of the democratic process, it shows parliament the state of public opinion and when enough signatures are gathered it puts an onus on parliament to at least commit to discussing the issue raised.

These are the democratic processes that we have to hold our government to account. Not everyone realises this, and not everyone realised they can make a difference. This is why conversation on the topics can be imperative.

So no, I don’t think it’s time to let political updates go and move on. I think it’s time to mobilise, and lobby hard, to ensure the government is working for, and accountable to, its people.